Walloon Legion

The Walloon Legion was a volunteer grenadier division of the German Waffen-SS that was active from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. The legion was raised from French volunteers from the Wallonia region of southern Belgium and from the capital of Brussels, and it was strongly associated with the fascist Rexist Party. On 15 October 1941, the division was sent to the front during Operation Barbarossa, advancing through Ukraine with Army Group South during the invasion of the Soviet Union. The battalion was later assigned to the rear to carry out anti-partisan duties, and it guarded the Axis supply lines during Case Blue and served on flank security. By November 1943, the legion and the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking were fighting together on the front lines, and only 632 of the brigade's 2,000 men survived the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket campaign of January-February 1944. The battalion helped in defending the Tannenberg Line in Estonia before falling back, and it was upgraded to division in October 1944 with a strength of 8,000 troops. The division fought against the Soviets in Pomerania and was then forced across the Elbe River, and only 23 officers and 625 men chose to stay with the legion after the council of war released the volunteers who no longer wanted to fight. The one last battalion was swept aside in the April 1945 offensive and withdrew to Lubeck, Germany, where it surrendered to the British Army.